Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 8 the one with the umbrellas

It's that short cut through that takes you from King Street to South King Street and of course it is the one with the umbrella's half way along and some delightful stone motifs.

I can't remember when the umbrella's appeared but they are one of the fun things I liked to show visitors.

I have to confess I didn't know it had a name, but according to Goad's Fire Insurance maps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries it is listed as St Ann's Passage.

In time I will track its history but it was there by 1849 as a covered passageway and back in 1793 was an open lane connecting King Street to what was then Back King Street.

So who would have thought that this cut through had a history?

All of which just leaves me to ask if anyone remembers the umbrella's being installed.

I rather think it was the mid 1970s but I can't remember.

I am guessing some of the motifs were made at the same time.

And that is it other than to say the umbrellas have now gone, which l think diminishes it's charm.



Location; Manchester









Pictures; between King Street and South King Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 16, when our water came from pumps and wells

Continuing the story of Chorlton in just a paragraph. They are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

Just over 40 years ago there was still a working water pump on Beech Road, and only a few years before that, old farmer Higginbotham finally got round to filling in his old well in the garden of his farmhouse on the green.  All of which goes to remind us that before the arrival of mains water in 1864 from Manchester, the township was reliant on pumps, wells, ponds and streams.  Now my picture was collected by Lois in a village in Sussex but I have every expectation that if you had walked through Chorlton something like 160 years ago there would have been plenty of similar ones.  We might mourn their passing but collecting the water from a pump was a chore and one that had to be done three or four times a day, and by the 1880s most supplies had either become polluted or dried up.  Nevertheless the public pumps were a meeting place and by all accounts a magic place for a six year old to play on hot summer’s days.

Picture; from the collection of Lois Elsden

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 15 a barrage balloon

Continuing the story of Chorlton in just a paragraph. They are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

It was on the Rec not far from where the children’s play area is now located.  Until the late 1980s it was still possible to see the concrete bed which helped secure the balloon.

Picture; from the collection of Allan Brown

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 7 County Street

This is County Street which is so unremarkable that it’s another of those narrow side streets not even worth a glance.

County Street, 2016

It is situated off Mount Street between Central Street and Lloyd Street, and goes nowhere.

It has none of the mysterious promise of other small side streets which might entice you in.

True it is narrow enough but it is also very short, ends in a dead end and has no twisty bits which make you wonder what is round the corner.

By 1900 it was just what you see now, although then it was called Chapel Street and ran into the back of the Memorial Hall and which is now a restaurant.

Go back just another fifty years and the street was indeed a more twisty stretch continuing all the way down to Coach Makers Entry which ran from Jackson’s Row to Lloyd Street.

And had you turned into it from Mount Street in 1851  it would have led to Brignall’s Dye Works and a Tannery before going off north and  east taking in any properties and passing the backs of another six buildings before exiting out on Coach Makers Entry, where for good measure there was the Coach Makers Arms.

The street in 1851

I can’t be sure when it was cut but it will date from after 1819, and indeed just fifteen years earlier this was just open land with a pond where the Albert Square Chop House now stands.

So it may not be much now but go back long enough and there was a lot more to that dead end, with plenty of stories just waiting to be uncovered.

Location, Manchester

Pictures; County Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the street in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/ 

The Parade Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath

Now I don’t have a date for this picture, but I bet there will be someone who does.

And I hope will also have some stories to tell us.

So I shall just leave it at that, the Parade, Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath sometime before now.

And soon after it was posted someone offered up a date, "this photo has to be pre 1925 as my flat is not even built yet. You see where the horse and cart is? That's where we are and they built a new set of shops and flats just after 1925."

All I need now is to know who this was and thank them properly.

Picture; courtesy of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 14, petrol pumps on Claude Road

Continuing the story of Chorlton in just a paragraph. They are in no particular order, and have been selected purely at random.

It was at the top of Claude Road as it turns west and is an odd place to site a petrol pump.  I remember it well and vaguely used to wonder why it was there.  My photograph dates from 1972 and the pump was still there twenty or so years later until the bit of land behind the pump was developed into a row of houses in what is now Rainbow Close.  Before that it was just a bit of open land and I guess was the site of either a garage or small builder’s yard.  Now the Egerton and Lloyd estates had not permitted industrial development here in Chorlton but there were plenty of small areas given over to the working of local craftsmen which will  feature in more detail tomorrow, so it maybe that our pump served just such an enterprise.

Which just leaves me to add from a contributor, "I grew up at 41 Claude road there were two petrol pumps one either side.it was a row of workshops where they did repair cars they also owned no. 45 Claude Road which they rented out.the owner had a classic car with running boards and a starting handle as kids in the 70's we cut through the garages to get to the brook to play."

Picture; Street furniture on Claude Road, 1972, m58833, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 5 Bow Lane

Now I am not surprised that Bow Lane rarely features in the street directories.

These were the books which were issued annually from the 1780s up to 1969 and listed the streets, the residents and the businesses in the city.

Bow Lane which runs from Cross Street over Clarence Street and then twist on to Princess Street seems unworthy of much of a mention; although to be fair there were two listings for 1911.

And twists it does widening as it travels up from Cross Street but now just a cut through for anyone wanting to avoid the main streets. That said it does offer an opportunity to look into the Town Hall Tavern.

Location; Manchester



Pictures; Bow Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson